Deal for Europe’s biggest facility for LNG imports comes as overall UK gas demand fell sharply last year
The owner of British Gas has placed a £1.5bn bet on the UK’s future reliance on fossil fuel imports after striking a deal to buy Europe’s biggest gas import terminal.
Centrica plans to partner with a US private equity firm to acquire the Isle of Grain terminal in Kent, which can import 15m tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year, even after Britain’s gas demand fell last year to its lowest level since the early 1990s.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/14/2025 - 09:50
08/14/2025 - 08:44
People on popular pilgrimage route were washed away by flood waters triggered by cloudburst, officials say
At least 56 people have died and 80 are missing after a sudden rainstorm in Indian Kashmir, the second such disaster in the Himalayas in a little over a week.
The incident in the town of Chashoti, Kishtwar district, occurred at a stopover point on a pilgrimage route. Days earlier, a flood and mudslide engulfed a village in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
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08/14/2025 - 08:30
Exclusive: 17 sites recorded elevated levels, in some cases thousands of times higher than proposed safe limits, as experts warn of potential risk to drinking water
“Alarmingly high” levels of toxic forever chemicals have been detected at English airports – in some cases thousands of times higher than proposed EU safe levels – with experts raising concerns over the potential impact on drinking water sources.
Seventeen airports recorded elevated levels of Pfas in the ground and surface water sample on their sites, according to unpublished Environment Agency documents, obtained exclusively by the Ends Report and the Guardian via an environmental information request.
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08/14/2025 - 06:27
Anish Kapoor work referring to ‘butchering of our environment’ believed to be first fine artwork exhibited from a working gas extraction platform
Greenpeace activists have scaled a gas rig, stretched a 96 sq metre canvas across its side and stained it crimson, in a protest designed with Anish Kapoor.
The work, in the North Sea, is believed to be the first piece of fine art exhibited from a working gas extraction platform.
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08/14/2025 - 05:27
Greenpeace climbers attached a new work, titled Butchered, by the renowned artist Anish Kapoor on to a Shell platform in the North Sea – the world’s first artwork to be installed on an active offshore gas site. After securing a 12-metre x 8-metre canvas to the structure, the activists hoisted a high-pressure hose 16 metres above sea level. They then pumped 1,000 litres of blood-red liquid that seeped into the fabric, creating a vast crimson stain. The work is a stark visualisation of the wound inflicted on humanity and the Earth by the fossil fuel industry, and aims to represent the collective grief and pain over what has been lost, as well as a call for reparation
Huge ‘Butchered’ artwork installed on North Sea gas rig by Greenpeace activists
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08/14/2025 - 05:22
As insurer’s shares hit highest level since 2008, CEO says green issues are also important for many of its clients
Aviva’s chief executive, Amanda Blanc, has reiterated the insurer’s commitment to climate goals in the face of growing pushback against net zero ambitions in the US and UK.
On Thursday Aviva’s shares hit their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, with investors cheering a rise in profits, and fresh payouts for investors worth 13.1p a share.
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08/14/2025 - 05:00
Author Michael Grunwald reckons with the challenge of food-based climate emissions in his new book We Are Eating the Earth
Ridding ourselves of fossil fuels has been a tortuously ponderous process and, in the current political era, one that can seem to be in full retreat. But we do have the tools to run our cities, vehicles and industries on clean energy and even through the murk of vested interest, the contours of a post-fossil world are becoming clearer.
Our system of producing food, though, is in a relative stone age when it comes to the climate crisis. We continue to raze vast tracts of carbon-rich forests for crop and grazing land thereby creating, by some estimates, as much as a third of all global planet-heating emissions.
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08/14/2025 - 04:42
Beate Gangås says attack in April by Norway’s ‘dangerous neighbour’ aimed to cause fear and chaos
Europe live – latest updates
Russian hackers took control of a Norwegian dam this year, opening a floodgate and allowing water to flow unnoticed for four hours, Norway’s intelligence service has said.
The admission, by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), marks the first time that Oslo has formally attributed the cyber-attack in April on Bremanger, western Norway, to Moscow.
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08/14/2025 - 00:00
Historically cool nations saw hospitals overheating and surge in drownings, wildfires and toxic algal blooms
The prolonged Nordic heatwave in July was supercharged by the climate crisis and shows “no country is safe from climate change”, scientists say.
Norway, Sweden and Finland have historically cool climates but were hit by soaring temperatures, including a record run of 22 days above 30C (86F) in Finland. Sweden endured 10 straight days of “tropical nights”, when temperatures did not fall below 20C (68F).
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08/13/2025 - 23:00
We need everyday solutions like ‘cool banks’ and shaded areas, as well as serious policies on emissions. The government must step up
Growing up in Madrid, intense summer heat was nothing unusual. I quickly learned always to cross the street in search of shade, and never to be caught out in the sun at 3pm. But as a child in the early 1980s, I never felt dizzy after spending more than a few minutes outdoors, nor did I struggle to study or sleep at home because of the heat. Back then, air conditioning was a rarity, something only Americans had. But we were fine: the stuttering fan in my mother’s Ford Fiesta was enough to keep us comfortable on holiday escapes from the capital.
What is happening in Spain now goes far beyond discomfort. More than 1,500 deaths have already been linked to heatwaves this summer alone. Public-sector workers are collapsing from heatstroke on our city streets. Entire communities in the Madrid suburbs have been devastated by wildfires. On Monday, 198 weather stations recorded temperatures of 40C or higher. Following a record-breaking July, the first 20 days of August will probably be the warmest on record. Alongside housing, the climate crisis is Spain’s most visible and most persistent problem: every summer reminds us of this. You can’t ignore it, or escape it; so why are Spain’s politicians still so reluctant to tackle the climate emergency?
María Ramírez is a journalist and the deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
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